{"product_id":"9780008422943","title":"Wagnerism : Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music","description":"\u003cp\u003eAuthor(s): Ross, Alex, \u003cbr\u003e Binding: Paperback, \u003cbr\u003e Date of Publication: 16\/09\/2021,\u003cbr\u003e Pagination: 784 pages, 100 b\/w illus, Index,\u003cbr\u003e Series: N\/A, \u003cbr\u003eImprint: Fourth Estate Ltd,\u003cbr\u003e Published By: HarperCollins Publishers,\u003cbr\u003e Book Classification: The arts,\u003cbr\u003e ISBN13\\EAN\\SKU: 9780008422943\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAn absolutely masterly work' Stephen Fry Alex Ross, renowned author of the international bestseller The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics-an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and violence. For better or worse, Wagner is the most widely influential figure in the history of music. Around 1900, the phenomenon known as Wagnerism saturated European and American culture.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSuch colossal creations as The Ring of the Nibelung, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal were models of formal daring, mythmaking, erotic freedom, and mystical speculation. A mighty procession of writers, artists, and thinkers, including Charles Baudelaire, Virginia Woolf, Isadora Duncan, Vasily Kandinsky, and Luis Bunuel, felt his impact. Anarchists, occultists, feminists, and gay-rights pioneers saw him as a kindred spirit.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen Adolf Hitler incorporated Wagner into the soundtrack of Nazi Germany, and the composer came to be defined by his ferocious anti-Semitism. His name is now almost synonymous with artistic evil. Wagnerism restores the magnificent confusion of what it means to be a Wagnerian.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA pandemonium of geniuses, madmen, charlatans, and prophets do battle over Wagner's many-sided legacy. The narrative ranges across artistic disciplines, from architecture to the novels of Philip K. Dick, from the Zionist writings of Theodor Herzl to the civil-rights essays of W.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eE. B. Du Bois, from O Pioneers! to Apocalypse Now.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn many ways,Wagnerism tells a tragic tale. An artist who might have rivalled Shakespeare in universal reach is implicated in an ideology of hate. Still, his shadow lingers over twenty-first century culture, his mythic motifs coursing through superhero films and fantasy fiction.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNeither apologia nor condemnation, Wagnerism is a work of intellectual passion, urging us toward a more honest idea of how art acts in the world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Winstones","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41117668245657,"sku":"9780008422943","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0423\/0240\/6809\/products\/9780008422943.jpg?v=1631723673","url":"https:\/\/winstonebooks.pro\/products\/9780008422943","provider":"Winstone's Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}